This is Me

I really want you to listen to something. It will take 35 minutes of your time, but everybody needs to hear this message. This link will allow you to choose to watch or listen. Pick the one that suits you. If you watch and want to skip the music, jump to the 30 minute mark. If you are reading this well past today's date, the message is from 10-13-19.

I believe that Pastor Phillip's approach to presenting a difficult topic was excellent. We (Christians) have been wrong before.
It's not that God was wrong.
We were wrong.
God hasn't changed, but perhaps our understanding of God and God's ways needs to change.

For a good number of years I have been preaching in Southern Baptist Churches as an itinerant evangelist. I have preached revivals, pastored camps, filled pulpits, taught classes, and performed magic for outreach events. Although the calls to preach have kept coming over the past two years and I have preached revivals and on Sundays, the truth is they are coming less often.
When I left my Southern Baptist church over philosophical differences two years ago, I knew that this day would come -- the day when I would no longer be asked to preach in the churches where I have been preaching.

Because my simple message of God loves you and Jesus died for you hasn't really changed*, I welcomed the opportunities to preach. However, I know that simple, insignificant (to me) things about me would be enough to disqualify me preaching in most evangelical churches -- like drinking alcohol.
Yeah, I'm fond of a bourbon, rum, or tequila with a good cigar. I enjoy a good craft beer with my kids or on a hot summer afternoon. I've kept pics of my drinking off of social media because of the few pastors and church people that still follow me.

But really, what's the point?
This is me.
I smoke cigars, enjoy a good bourbon, believe that God created, loves, and affirms the LGBTQ+ community, and I love God and strive (but often struggle) to love others as Jesus did. Although much of my core beliefs about God and God's great love for us (all of us) haven't changed much, the peripheral beliefs are enough to exclude me from preaching in the places that I've been preaching.

Last Saturday I served the LGBTQ+ community as a Faithful Ally during Springfield's Pride Fest.
Next month I will be officiating a same gender wedding for two friends that demonstrate love as well as anyone I know. That will pretty much seal my fate as far as preaching in most churches.

Honestly, it makes me a little sad.
But then again --
This is me.

Cheers!

God loves you.
Jesus lived for you!

John <><

*Changing my way of thinking